<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>jet blue by thisstableground</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22893214">jet blue</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/pseuds/thisstableground'>thisstableground</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>ITH main timeline [13]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>In the Heights - Miranda/Hudes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Family, Gen, Missing Scene</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:35:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,360</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22893214</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/pseuds/thisstableground</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Yeah, Usnavi stayed in New York and yeah, Sonny's happy about it, but at <i>some</i> point they're gonna have to acknowledge the fact he nearly left.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>ITH main timeline [13]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1070721</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>59</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>jet blue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>broke: usnavi was selfish for wanting to go to DR<br/>woke: usnavi had a lot of reasons for wanting to leave that were very valid even if he could've gone about it better, and it’s also valid for sonny to be upset about it, and nobody is selfish for wanting to be happy even when their desires contradict each other, but they should <i>definitely</i> have a conversation about it</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It takes just over a week after the blackout for the bodega to be open doors again, but they spend most of it working anyway. De la Vegas don’t get a break just because of a tiny thing like a break-in. The power was sporadic for another couple of days, Usnavi took a full afternoon off to pace anxiously about his second date with Vanessa while Benny and Sonny tried to calm him down. And there was Abuela's funeral, of course.</p><p>The work got done eventually, though, the work here always does. Windows fixed up as good as new, the grate pulls up and pulls down smooth and easy – at least for now - and with Abuela’s face in smiling spraypaint looking on approvingly as they work. Tío Mateo’s first dollar back in place in its frame on the wall, next to the newly-fixed shelving unit all ready to be refilled with the liquor which was the first thing to go in the looting. Usnavi grumbles about the little punks in this town like the 80-year-old he secretly is as they scuttle back and forth between the backroom to the front for restock.</p><p>Sonny sets his box down with a groan and a muffled clank of all the bottles inside. “Oof. So! Once this is done we’re back in business, ¿sí?”</p><p>“Actually,” Usnavi says, abandoning his reshelving to feel around in one of his oversized jeans pockets, from which he pulls out a slightly crumpled-up envelope. “Seems like a good time to tell you, I think we earned una vacación.”</p><p>There’s a terrifying second where Sonny only sees the JetBlue logo on the envelope and thinks, <em>he changed his mind?</em> until he actually hears what Usnavi just said.  "¿En serio?" He grabs the tickets off him. JFK to DR, boarding this weekend, return date two weeks after. "¿Los dos? I’m comin’ too?</p><p>“Yeah!” Usnavi’s beaming, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Escuela’s out, we got the cash for once, ¿por qué no? I figure we can see your pa, hit la playa, maybe hire a bike. Just enjoy ourselves, ¿sabes?”</p><p>“Enjoy ourselves? Who are you and what have you done with my cousin?” Sonny says. Usnavi is looking at him, waiting for his reaction, and Sonny slaps him a delighted high five. “It’s about damn time you learned to have fun.”</p><p>“You get <em>dos </em>weeks of Fun Usnavi and eso es todo.” Usnavi rolls out his shoulder, the left one that he always makes that godawful cracking sound with whenever he’s been doing too much heavy lifting, and adds, “could use a couple <em>years</em> vacation, really, but I guess I made my choice.”</p><p>“You woulda hated it, anyhow,” Sonny says. How can Usnavi joke about that? “You always gotta be doin' something, you woulda got bored after three days sitting on a beach.”</p><p>“I wasn't <em>just</em> gonna go there and sit on a beach.”</p><p>“Or open a bar, whatever.” Sonny pulls open his box, tearing the duct tape along the seam viciously and shoving a couple bottles onto the shelf. “What’s so different about a bar than a bodega anyways? It’s still just customers and serving drinks. You woulda hated it.”</p><p>Usnavi prods his shoulder. “Yo, why you so mad all of a sudden?”</p><p>“I ain’t mad,” Sonny says, furiously.</p><p>“Yes you are. Tell me why.”</p><p>“You know why.”</p><p>“¿No entiendo? What did <em>I </em>do?”</p><p>“What did you do?! You were gonna <em>leave</em>!"" Sonny shouts, surprising both of them.</p><p>He didn’t mean to bring it up, had been determined to never complain about the job or about el barrio again, nothing that’d make Usnavi change his mind about his choice. But it’s bullshit. His dad already up and fucked off to DR back before Sonny was even in high school and okay, yeah, he sees him sometimes and he loves him but it ain’t the same as him being <em>here</em>. They can't just pretend nothing would've changed if Usnavi had gone there too.</p><p>And look, shut up, it isn’t like he thinks Usnavi’s his replacement dad or nothing like that. It’s just that Usnavi’s always been there. Even when his mom didn’t get him and his dad was a whole-ass plane ride away, Usnavi’s always been there. Usnavi gave him his first job and always cooks him a kind of mediocre dinner on Friday nights and goes to his parent-teacher meetings when Mom is at work. Usnavi has literally spit on a tissue and used it to clean chocolate off of Sonny’s face before. When they were both kids Usnavi used to drag him round on adventures and waited for him to catch up on his little toddler legs, and never cared about if having a five-year old by his side made him look cool.  He would’ve thrown all that away so he could live out some beachfront fantasy and he doesn’t know what he did?</p><p>Usnavi holds his hands in the air in a “hey don’t bite the messenger” movement. it is the most fucking infuriating thing Sonny has ever seen. He is the most fucking infuriating person Sonny has ever met. “I talked about leaving for a long time, it ain’t like it was new.”</p><p>“Yeah, but you wasn’t supposed to ever actually do it!” They kid about that shit all the time, Usnavi moving to run a bar, Sonny hating his job, but it’s only a <em>joke. </em>They wouldn’t give up their store. Or so Sonny thought until last week. “You never even gave us time. As <em>soon</em> as you got that money you had a flight booked. Everything we’ve been through together and you don’t give me more than one goddamn day before you and Abuela both up and catch a plane without me? And you think you can just buy me off and that makes it okay?”</p><p>Usnavi sheepishly scratches his ear. “Okay, I mean, maybe it wasn’t the best way to do it—“</p><p>“Yeah, ¡no me diga!”</p><p>“There was so much goin’ on, I wasn’t thinking. I stayed in the end, didn’t I?”</p><p>“You weren’t <em>goin' </em>to.”</p><p>“...Yeah,” Usnavi says, rueful. “Yeah, I guess I can’t argue with that.”</p><p>“I woulda come along in a heartbeat, if you asked,” Sonny says, fists clenched so hard he could crush steel with them. “You shoulda known that.”</p><p>“You got your mom and your friends and school to think of, you wanna go to college over here, you ain’t movin’ to a beach in the middle of nowhere.”</p><p>“You were, though. What, you ain’t got nothing here you thought was worth staying for? You ain’t got a life here too, things you care about?”</p><p>“Sonny, of course I do,” he says. “I know what you’re thinking, but please, you gotta  believe I had my reasons for it and not <em>one</em> of them was about leaving you behind.”</p><p>“Why should I believe that?” he says, and Usnavi shakes his head sadly. “No, quiero un respuesta. You can’t just say ‘I got my reasons’ and expect me to not wanna know what’s so much more important than us.”</p><p>“I don’t think y-”</p><p>“Don’t you dare tell me I ain’t old enough to know, or that it’s complicated.” Sonny jabs a finger into Usnavi’s chest. “You owe me. I stayed out in the blackout holding this place down with a goddamn baseball bat. You fuckin’ <em>owe</em> me, Usnavi.”</p><p>They stare each other down in stubborn silence for the longest time, and then Usnavi nods in defeat and sits down on a box. The cardboard crumples a little under his weight on the side that he’s already unpacked, but he doesn’t notice. He indicates the box Sonny just opened next to him; reluctantly, Sonny folds the top back down and sits too.</p><p>“How much do you remember about Mamá and Pai?” Usnavi asks.</p><p>“I remember everything,” Sonny says automatically, the question catching him off guard.</p><p>“Do you?” Usnavi asks gently. It isn’t accusatory at all, but Sonny’s chest stings with guilt anyway. “I ain’t talkin’ about when they were sick. Do you remember what their voices sounded like? Or the way Mamá used to hug us, or the way Pai’s café tasted? Like, <em>really </em>remember it?”</p><p>“I—yeah, claro que sí.” At least, he knows that it was there, even if it feels removed now, a picture of a picture.  He remembers them as kind faces, as people who he loved, as some of the things they did together. He doesn’t really remember <em>them</em> all that well. It’s always so hard to lie to Usnavi. “I mean...it was a long time ago and I was a little kid. The big stuff is all there. Just not some of the details.”</p><p>He feels terrible admitting it, but Usnavi waves a consoling hand, says, “it’s okay, chiquito. I don't remember either.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“It s been nearly five years, it was gonna start happening sooner or later.” Usnavi takes his hat off, rubs a hand over his face. He looks worn down, just like he did at the funeral the other day, nothing left but raw edges. “It’s only gonna keep happening. I don’t wanna forget them. I thought if I went back home, their home...”</p><p>“Oh,” Sonny repeats. “Why didn't you <em>tell</em> me that?”</p><p>“I don’t like talking about it, you know that,” Usnavi says. “I-it messed me up, losing them. Sometimes it’s hard not to blame this place for it, and...and it feels sometimes like I’m working and working and I’m just sending myself down the same path they went down.”</p><p>“That ain’t happening,” Sonny says, because the alternative is that it might and that’s so much worse than Usnavi just fucking off to DR that he can’t even acknowledge it.</p><p>“I thought if I waited I’d have to talk to you, and Benny, and everyone, I’d have to think about what it really meant, and if I did that I wouldn’t be able to go through with it. So I told myself I was just looking out for you. Grown up problems, don’t burden the kid with your bullshit, he’ll be fine without you anyway.” Usnavi looks down at the floor. “But it was really just that I didn’t wanna talk about it. I was tired of worrying what everyone else wants me to do and I wanted it to be easier to leave. I ain’t proud of it.”</p><p>“So...so does that mean you regret staying?” Sonny asks, wondering if maybe all him and Pete managed to do is delay the inevitable. The part of him still pissed at everything wants to call it out as an excuse, but even if Sonny doubts a lot of things he thought he knew about his cousin, he’s still certain Usnavi would never use his parents’ memory for cheap pity. He never talks about them like this, or at least not to Sonny. There’s a hell of a lot of stuff he doesn’t talk to Sonny about. Has he just dragged him back to be miserable? That isn't what he wanted. He always thought Usnavi was <em>happy </em>here. </p><p>“Just because I had reasons for goin' don’t mean I shoulda done it.” Usnavi gives him a tiny smile. “I make a lot of bad decisions. But no, I don’t regret staying. I was leaving to feel more connected to family when everyone who matters the most is already here. I don’t know why I didn’t realize that before.” He puts an arm around Sonny and says, “lo siento. It wasn’t ‘cause I don’t care about you. Don’t you <em>ever</em> think that I don’t care about you.”</p><p>Even though Sonny isn’t a hundred percent sure he’s stop being mad, he accepts the hug Usnavi pulls him into, seeking comfort from his favorite cousin just an instinct by this point. He asked for an explanation but he hates the one he got, maybe almost as much as he would’ve hated it if Usnavi had said “yeah, I just fuckin’ love beaches more than I love you, I guess.”</p><p>Sonny was only ten when it happened, losing his tío and tía. Old enough to know they were gone forever and to miss them, not old enough to understand why. A lot of different adults told him a lot of different things: that they weren’t in the best health to begin with, that life has a lot of pain but it teaches you to treasure what you got, that sometimes things just happen, that god never gives anyone more than they can carry. Nobody told him the truth. They died because they were poor, plain and simple, and anyone who could've stopped it wouldn’t care enough about one tiny Dominican family living in the hood to do anything.</p><p>He’d promised himself back then that one day he’d be the person to stop that kind of thing happening, no more lost families. But even though they won the lotto, even if Sonny goes to college and protests and votes and gets himself in a place where he can invest in the barrio, it’s always gonna be too late for their family. Usnavi’s never gonna have his parents back. Abuela will never be here to tell them what they should do. Sonny’s never gonna not know that Usnavi nearly left him behind, even if he did change his mind in the end. They just have to live with it and carry on and hope for the best. Maybe Usnavi will still leave one day. He’ll go to DR, or shit, maybe he’s right and he’ll work himself into an early grave just like his folks did, who knows.</p><p>It hasn’t happened yet. That’ll have to be good enough, until Sonny thinks of something better.</p><p>Usnavi stays with his arm around him, then gives him an affectionate little shake and softly says, “hey now, I don’t pay you to cry on the clock.”</p><p>Sonny wipes his eyes with a laugh, says, “shit, ninguna sympatía from el jefe. Why’d I want you to stay, again?”</p><p>“You know you love me,” Usnavi says, ruffling Sonny’s baseball cap askew on his head and standing up. “C’mon.  We still got work to do.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>please leave a comment if you liked it! thankyou!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>